


Can't Make Heads or Tails, The Coin is On Its Side.

by Browa123



Series: Tumblr Promptz [6]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Blood, DNA, Ectoplasm, Gen, Inaccurate Science Hour, Oneshot, Science, Tumblr Prompt, Writing Prompt, elements from my Genetic Halfas theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-24 01:31:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18159701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Browa123/pseuds/Browa123
Summary: Ectoplasm’s reaction to blood had never been different.It was a hostile reaction, if not a volatile one. There was no reason this test should have been different, but Phantom seemed to defy expectations all the way down to his plasm, leaving Jack and Maddie with only more questions.





	Can't Make Heads or Tails, The Coin is On Its Side.

Both Jack and Maddie jumped under the back desk for cover as the lab table exploded into a bright array of green flames, that slowly fizzled out after some time.

Both scientists quickly recovered from the shock as an ice blue steam rose from the remains of the combustion reaction, sharing a glance. That was new. Maddie lifted her goggles off her head, slowly examining the remains of the experiment.

"In all my career, I have never seen a reaction like that," the scientist states, watching with piqued curiosity. Ectoplasm was a radioactive substance yes, completely otherworldly, but it had never combusted on contact with blood before. Maddie had acquired some animal plasma from a veterinary clinic that had some leftover blood test samples for these very important tests.

After all, it was possible that these were the only samples of Phantom's ectoplasm that they may ever get their hands on.

It was a lucky shot, really. The shot had ripped cleanly through the ghost's side, causing it to stumble and drop from the air, leaking it's very makeup all over the ground like blood. The thing had gotten away once again, disappearing from the scanners, but what it left behind was invaluable.

Maddie had noticed that Phantom's ectoplasm was off in an instant. It was more runny than your typical mucus consistency material, for one thing. The color was slightly off, but Maddie had just taken it for the gravel in the road where they scraped the ectoplasm off. To top it off, the initial radiation tests had very little merit, leaving the plasm much less radioactive than your common sample.

For all intents and purposes, it was ectoplasm. But it was different, wrong, strange. And the reaction on the table proved that petty suspicions were turning out to be right. The way it interacted with the animal blood was very out of the norm for ectoplasm, so there must be a deterrent of some kind that makes it react so extremely in the presence of blood.

"Jack, can you get me another sample? I might need the standard issue electron microscope," Maddie instructs her husband. She'd seen the close up slides of ectoplasm a million times now. It was a single element, it's molecules uniform with no other trace elements aside from a minuscule amount of copper, which was used to transmit energy from the ghostly core to the rest of the entity.

Jack comes back with a vial of ectoplasm and a few slides. Maddie takes a clean eyedropper and swiftly adds some of Phantom's ectoplasm to the slides, pressing the ends together and moving the sample under the microscope. Her breath catches in her throat as she takes in what is on the slide.

This isn't ectoplasm.

It contains ectoplasm, yes. The molecular structure is there, but it's mixed in with so many different elements Maddie didn't think were possible. She beacons her husband over to look at the scientific impossibility before her, as her head tries to run through possibilities.

Another slide of Phantom's ectoplasm is prepared while Jack takes in the slide before him with equal shock. "This is scientifically impossible," Maddie mutters, finding herself in a cold sweat. This wasn't natural. This wasn't the order of things. Phantom was a breakthrough, but she didn't think it would be this much of a breakthrough.

More tests were required. Quickly, three more slides were prepared. Jack quickly got to work on making an ectoplasm centrifuge based on what he had seen in the slide, while Maddie tests other reactions. The plasm continued to react poorly to animal blood, the elements of the steam leftover being water and trace nitrogen.

There was a combustible energy in the ectoplasm. Jack's machine was finished in record time, and it processed the composition with relative ease. Water, Iron, Keratin, Carbon... there were trace elements of everything imaginable embedded in the ectoplasmic structure. Trace elements that would belong to a living organism.

Maddie can't even begin to imagine how on earth there was a living ghost out there, and that this was ectoplasmic blood. Jack wasn't one to question what a ghost was made of like his wife, rather find ways to catch and destroy himself, but even he was a bit distressed if his ever confident wife was being this aloof.

Maddie paced back and forth, moving back to the sample under the microscope. The ectoplasm even had DNA embedded in the many impossible cells throughout the chemical structure. It was some freaky hybridization of a living and dead organism-

Hybridization.

Maddie looks at the DNA again. The term hybrid throwing her mind further into overdrive, looking at the genes in the DNA. The DNA in the ectoplasm, which is so very much impossible. But here it was, Phantom the Hybrid Ghost.

The ectoplasm in the samples seemed really keen on keeping its molecules most closely structured around Phantom's DNA, like it was fused to the genes itself. There was something in Phantom's ectoplasmic blood that allowed both substances to keep a stable mixture, unlike when it reacted to the blood.

This fusion has to be precise, or else the entity collapses completely. If Phantom wasn't in that sweet spot of its fused parts, it too would probably combust. There was something in Phantom's genes that allowed it to be a hybridization in the first place.

"Phantom had to have been human first," Maddie decides. The ectoplasm had to have latched on to whatever DNA Phantom's past life held before it's (his?) death. With this perfect recreation of blood fused with ectoplasm, is Phantom really dead in the first place?

There's a spark on the other end of the room, Jack running another test. The man stumbles back, narrowly avoiding Maddie as she looks over at the sample. The glow faded and it turned into blood. Actual blood, not the ectoplasmic kind.

"Did that just-"

"I don't believe it Mads. What even is this ghost kid if this is what we're getting from it's ectoplasm alone?!"

"I doubt we can classify this as ectoplasm anymore, Jack," Maddie points out, seeing the blood, the actual human blood, drip off the table. With shaky hands, she gathers a sample of the blood that had shifted states of matter, apparently.

For all intents and purposes, it's blood with traces of inactive ectoplasm around the strands of DNA. Maddie feels like she's going to have a headache. The guilt of shooting a hybrid living creature and experimenting on it's blood begin to weigh, as she thinks on what she would have done to Phantom had she caught him.

If she dissected him, would he have had human organs inside? The thought makes her sick.

Both Fentons need a break for today, so they gather their notes and head upstairs. The agreement is a silent one, but there would be no more hunting to kill Phantom from this point on. Phantom can be killed, and it's still rocking the world and leaving it tilted to the side.

"I need some fudge," Jack states simply, heading to the cabinets to find some while Maddie boils the kettle. There's the sound of the door creaking as Danny moves into the kitchen with a bit of favor to his right side, flipping a coin.

"Danny!" Maddie near shrieks, seeing her son injured. Danny himself flinches and catches the coin in his hand, gripping it as Maddie begins inspecting his side. There's bandages up his waist with blood leaking through them, leaving her horrified as she drags her hand away.

"Ghost attack at school," Danny quickly affirms. "There was a ghost with a blade, but Phantom swooped in an chased it off while I got treated. And I know you two don't like him much, but he did sort of save me from getting sliced into ribbons..." he jokes almost quietly.

The mention of Phantom causes both parents to flinch themselves, leaving Danny to look a bit more dejected. He starts flipping the coin and catching it again. "The school nurse gave me this penny, said it as something to focus on to get my mind off the pain."

Maddie is still quite worried though, as she looks at her son's blood in her gloves. Right away she notices something is off, and a sick sense of deja-vu hits her. Danny's blood is a bit thicker than the normal consistency and a bit brighter of a color, almost like...

There's the sound of something hitting the table and Danny giving a sharp "oops!" as his penny moves from his grasp. The copper coin rolls on the table before sticking strait up, landing on neither heads or tails. 

Danny tilts his head at the odd landing position. It must be a really low chance for the coin to land like that with how small the edge is. Even shaking the table could knock it over.

"Huh. I didn't even think it was at all possible for a coin to land like that," Danny comments.


End file.
